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December 12, 2016

Roots & Vegetables

ENGIt's wonderful to see how vegan recipes are entering the Finnish Christmas dinner table to accompany ham and various types of root vegetable puddings – or to replace them altogether.

Even if you decided to stick to traditions, Olga Temonen gives a tip for an easy vegetable side for the holidays in her newly published book: Wanting to get off light, forget the puddings and cut rutabagas, parsnips and carrots into strips and bake in the oven.

I got a head start on roots last week when Finland celebrated 99 years of independence and prepared honey roasted root vegetables – even rutabaga, or swede, although I do remember my mother had written in my childhood diary that "rutabaga pudding" was one of my least preferred foods... I replaced the honey with agave nectar that has a low glycemic index (I spotted the natural sweetener in Yogamat.) A nice touch is also Dijon mustard that Olga topped her recipe off with *). And once you're at it, roasted root vegetables can be prepared for a couple of meals – they taste great even cold.

Honey roasted root vegetables

Fairtrade ingredients

1/2 dl honey

1/2 dl olive oil

Other ingredients

6 potatoes, chopped

4 carrots, chopped

150 g parsnips, chopped

150 g rutabaga, chopped

a pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Put the chopped root vegetables in a pan. Mix honey, olive oil and salt. Pour the honey oil onto the roots. Roast the roots in the oven for half an hour, or until they are done and caramelized.

Alternatively, if you eat fish, you could prepare an all-in-one meal on a bed of root vegetables. Here, Fairtrade wine crowns Mediterranean-inspired salmon on a bed of root vegetablesgarnished with capers and olives. – All you need is a fillet of rainbow trout, whitefish or sander (pike-perch). Thinly slice the vegetables ​​and spread them on a pan. Add a dollop of Fairtrade olive oil, olives, capers and plenty of fresh thyme – add thyme also inside the fish. Lay the fish on the spicy bed, and pour Fairtrade white wine on top. Roast in a 200-degree oven until the fish and the vegetables are cooked.

PS Fancy something special for setting the table for your fish & roots meal? The pattern on this napkin by Havi is called "Ahvenet", or Perches, and it is a Pattern Bakery design.

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Recyclie, that's me, a foodie gone (re)cycling: This blog's all about bicycle riding, living and cooking on a shoestring, and, naturally, recycling, or "repairing, repainting, reinterpreting, reviving, redeploying or simply relishing" – to quote one of my favorite interior designers and authors, Ilse Crawford–, feminine and Finnish style, with an Italian twist. In real life, I'm a Helsinki-based interpreter and translator, as well as the author of "Reilun kaupan ruokaa ja elämää" (Perhemediat, 2009), that is, the first Finnish Fairtrade cookbook.